Christmas Math Activities

Kids Math Games For Fun

Christmas math activities and games add to the festive fun. Maths might not be quite what you had in mind for Christmas Day, but think again. There are lots of games and fun math activities you can do which teach number skills while everyone enjoys themselves.

In fact, I don't think Christmas would be Christmas without playing some kids math games!

The main problem with maths for many kids is lack of self confidence. A positive, relaxed time playing games in the holidays can do a great deal to restore your kids belief in their own ability.

Fun Math Activities

The lead-up to the festive season offers all sorts of opportunities to incorporate maths.

• Decorate your Tree with Geometry. There's nothing more Christmas-y than a well adorned tree. You could make everything from snowflakes to snowmen as symmetrical shapes. Add a drop of glitter and hang from your tree!
• Fantasy Present Shopping. Go online or use a store catalogue and get your kids to choose whatever they want - within a budget! As fun math activities go, the sky's the limit. Fancy a trip to the International Space Station? That's maths with a lot of noughts!

  William and Catherine love looking at the Lego catalogue as part of their homeschool maths and imagining all the sets they might buy for Christmas.

  It's more fun, of course, if you can give your child some real money to use so they can work out how much they'd spend to buy their friends' presents.

  If Father Christmas is listening, Lego is actually fabulous as part of your Christmas math activities. If you're around as your child builds their model, you'll hear all sorts of maths skills being practised, from number counting to logic.

• Mince Pies and Chocolate Log. Baking is a great way to sweeten Christmas math activities. From weighing out ingredients to counting the numbers of pies, get your kids cooking!

Kids Maths Games for Little Ones

• Advent Calendar. Opening those doors is a perfect way of learning how to count up to 25!
• Carols: The Twelve Days of Christmas. An ideal counting game. Older kids could help add up all the gifts.
• Add counting into as many activities as you can: how many presents are there under the tree?

Math Activities for Kids on Christmas Day

In our house, Christmas games on the Day are part of the ritual. And every year, it just so happens that our favourite family game happens to have lots of maths in it!

Father Christmas can be relied upon to have brought a few fun math games on his sleigh.

What will suit your family will be different from mine. But, with a little forethought, I'm sure you'll be able to choose something that fits the bill.

From classics like Monopoly and Cluedo, board games are a great way of picking up all sorts of essential maths skills while you digest your pudding.

You could try some of our homeschool favourites like:

• Settlers of Catan (age 10+).

• Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers (age 8+). Great fun for homeschool!
• Agricola (age 12+) - definitely not one of those activities to be tackled when you're a little the worse for wear and not too much math in it, but a William and Catherine Christmas favorite:

There are lots more suggestions for homeschool math and games in our page on Third Grade Math Activities.

The fun homeschool activities don't stop there as you can see in our Elementary Math Activities. We even manage to make homeschool fractions fun with our Fraction Math Activities and you can make shapes to hang from the Christmas tree with our homeschool Geometry Activities.

Come and join us making snowflakes, crackers and cards in our page on Christmas Activities For Kids.

The secret with math activities for kids is to keep the games fun. When I was a child, we spent a lot of time playing balloon tennis on Christmas day. If you think about it, hitting a balloon over a string net in front of the tree has plenty of maths in it - the hard part is keeping score after you've popped one!

So Christmas math activities don't have to cost anything, they just have to be fun!

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